Dearests,
I always love when Austin Kleon writes his 100 Things list for the year. I thought I’d share mine too. 100 Things I made, did or appreciated in this, the oddest of years.
I’d like to preface this by saying: I don’t want you to look at my list and think “WTF? Is Leonie a Covid denier? Why is she still DOING THINGS OUT IN THE WORLD?” I am ridiculously lucky to live in Queensland, Australia which has pretty much eradicated Covid-19. We had a short, intense lockdown earlier in the year, maintained locked state borders and stopped international travel. It’s meant we’ve been able to return to a relatively normal life. I know this is not the case for most of the world, and acknowledge my deep privilege in this.
Want to listen to this as a podcast episode instead? SURE WHY NOT!
Righto… let’s ROLL!
100 Things I Did & Made & Loved This Year
- Wrote an erotic romantic novella
- Kept my kids’ mental and emotional health as my #1 focus during quarantine schooling
- Wrote a massive resource post on how to homeschool for those who are quarantine schooling
- Drove a boat for the first time
- Read 130 books
- Got officially diagnosed as being on the Autistic Spectrum
- Created 3 new products for the 2021 Goal Getter workbook & planner range
- Fell in love with Maleny
- Decluttered my home (it’s like an onion… so many decluttering layers!)
- Started developing a minimalist capsule wardrobe
- Launched a podcast & recorded 60+ episodes
- Created “Soul Care For Uncertain Times” e-course
- Donated $25,000 to Australian Wildlife Conservancy
- Ran live rounds of Money, Book & E-Course e-courses
- Was interviewed on 38 podcasts
- Fell in love with digital illustration on my iPad
- Did over 40 portraits
- Learned how to bake bread
- Walked around a historic town by myself, took photos of all the architecture & then drew them at home.
- Sent horrifically funny cards to my dear friends to cheer them up during lockdown…
- Got my very first speeding ticket (7 kms over the speed limit! OOOOOOOOH MAAAAAAAAAA!)
- Making fires in our fire pit with my Dad while he visited
- Started to grow a quarantine vegetable garden which was promptly eaten by water rats. I’ve now converted to using a VegePod.
- Did a Press Publish every Day experiment
- Gave over 200 scholarships to frontline healthcare workers
- Gave over 166 scholarships to BIPOC
- Read a lot of books in the bath.
- Adjusted to having both my kids in school for the first time in 10 years
- Made a “$10 Million In 10 Hours A Week Productivity Hacks” cheatsheet
- Did a ceremony at the river to honour my grandfather’s death, and donated to charities in his name.
- Went away to a hotel for a night by myself for my birthday
- Took my daughter to a sacred tween circle to prepare her for her initiation into womanhood
- Continued to fail at having an appropriate elevator pitch for the 16th year running.
- Made friends with pelicans
- Won three business awards
- Ended up in hospital with an allergic reaction (not sure to what… cauliflower? Insect bites?)
- Started making videos with ridiculous hats because I hated the idea of looking fancy on camera… a box full of hats though? SIGN ME UP.
- Had my assistant evolve into an online business manager and start working 20 hours a week for me
- Went to the beach on an amazing wash up day – so much coral & sealife to inspect!
- Built a trampoline that had been in storage for 2 years. Really enjoyed the process, as evidenced here.
- Created the free Quarantine Planner
- Saw my own books in a bookstore for the first time
- Helped people to write to their ministers about the climate crisis
- Watched my kids perform in their first musical theatre performance
- Was obsessed by Daryl Braithwaite’s Love Songs
- Continued my sacred tradition of forcing my family into tacky tourist photos
- Had a quick chat with business owners about anti-racism
- Did the Gruffalo augmented reality adventure at the Ginger Factory
- Had my 20 year school reunion via Zoom (because… 2020 OF COURSE WE DID)
- Continued my long-running photographic series called “My Father Asleep On My Couch Before 8pm”. Whenever he visits, I get to add to my collection, and it thrills me greatly. I’ve even enlisted mutual friends to contribute to the series… wherever he goes, WE WILL DOCUMENT HIS COUCH NAPS.
- Obsessively watched “Farmer Wants A Wife”, complete with live group text messages with addicted friends.
- Finally burning those fancy candles I bought 7 years ago.
- Dislocated my hips & had a prolapsed disc – all from walking. WALKING. W A L K I N G. I swear to fucking god. It took me five months to recover, and got suuuuuper close with my osteopath. Hypermobility is no joke!
- I replaced my 17-year old chipboard bookshelf in my office with a combo bookcase/cupboard unit from IKEA. Did you know that if you put shit BEHIND doors, instead of falling out of a bookcase, it looks, like, WAY TIDIER? REVELATION!
- Bought a Dyson cordless stick vacuum and it changed my fucking life. I’m not even kidding. It’s how vacuums should have been invented all along. You can tell I’m officially middle aged because I’m talking about this, and I DO NOT CARE. IT REALLY DID CHANGE MY LIFE.
- Discovered a full lunch box that was left in a school bag over quarantine… for FOUR MONTHS. FOUR MONTHS. It smelled like an unholy exorcism, remedied only by removing not only the lunch box but the entire school bag itself to the trash bin.
- Still can’t believe it’s 2020 and I have to talk about Nazis, but here we are.
- Bought an electric drum kit and a ukelele during quarantine. I thought I’d get into it, but I, in fact, did not. My kids did however, and that thrills me!
- Took my tween to get her ears pierced for the first time. It was a rite of passage. I can’t quite believe I have a tween. Like they sing in Mamma Mia… she’s slipping through my fingers all the time.
- Moved all my superannuation & stocks into ethical investments. Honestly, it was the best thing I did all year.
- Demolitioned the half wall around our verandah – just me, a sledgehammer & a skip. I have never felt so powerful!
- Got a “lash lift” and honestly… I’m pretty stoked with it. Usually I’m not really into girly shit, but on this occasion? OH YES.
- Spent some amusing quarantine time pretending to be an ant.
- Reading new books from The Storey Treehouse & Bad Guys series to my kids.
- Ate a lot of lemon & coconut slice while drinking chai tea & reading a book at River Read.
- Made an enormous amount of apple crumble to eat with cream.
- Did a podcast episode about how to write a best-selling book.
- Did Pilates classes via Zoom.
- Witnessed an enormous butterfly migration. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen, and lasted for weeks. I will always remember in the early days of quarantine, going for a bicycle ride with my kids with butterflies flying beside us the whole way.
- Had an awesome bushwalk with Chris at Noosa Spit and got lost. It was magical.
- Made a poster inspired by Austin Kleon’s “Keep Going”
- Celebrated my birthday by going to the library, power reading through a pile of books & making illustrated notes about them.
- Was so grateful to Melbournians & Victorians for undergoing the longest quarantine in the world to keep Australia safe.
- Changed the name of my yearly planners
- Committing to using the art supplies I had already, instead of buying more.
- Spending an inordinate amount of time looking at the river – either by myself, with Chris or while the kids played.
- Having a Zoom dinner with some of my favourite friends.
- Created a cheatsheet on surviving 2020 financially
- Still waiting for that post-pandemic orgy to happen… keep me posted!
- Staying married & in love for 19 years.
- Shared a huge 2020 Business Update.
- Getting a letter in the mail from one of my nearest and dearests with seeds from her garden.
- Getting obsessed by playing Yahtzee.
- Had Thai takeout on the river regularly with girlfriends (once it was safe to do so).
- Listening to Chat 10 Looks 3 podcasts.
- Had a panic attack in the grass, or as my husband calls it “Gathering content for her next social media post.” (This still makes me snort out my nose laughing, BTW. Also, I don’t think I need to clarify, but I will anyway: my bloke is super supportive and understanding of my mental health. He also happens to have an uncanny ability to drop exquisitely funny one-liners).
- My 10 year old starting to beat me at Chess.
- Daily river walks with my love.
- Danced on a lot of coaching calls this year.
- Created a “Retire At 45 Plan“
- Created an absolutely enormous podcast episode about my life & business journey. ALL THE THINGS!
- Got full-blown obsessed with the TV shows Alone, Ted Lasso & Long Way Up.
- Did e-courses with Katie Chappell, Ericka Hart, Tara Brach, Rachel Cargle, Annie Liebovitz and Louise O’Reilly.
- Getting to watch Further Back In Time For Dinner. This series is incredible!
- Talking to my longest-serving friends. The older I get, the more important they become.
- Aztec smoothies from Raw Energy.
- Having a daily accountability buddy.
- Getting to love my kids, exactly as they are.
- This song, and this video, and this sentiment.
- Survived a pandemic (HIGH FIVES!)
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and the Wild Bushman Dad arrives again.
And soon, I’ll slip into that patch of time where I don’t remember what day it is. I’ll just eat, talk shit, play board games, let the rhythms of family swallow me whole, etch time out to work on my 2021 goals.
It’s been a momentous year, one we will always remember.
May next year birth new possibilities, healing & repair.
I’m here for you, chanting your name, cheering you on.
All my love,
